Structure and detailed tasks of the Project Office (D7.1)

About this document Deliverable: D7.1 Work package in charge: WP7 Management Actual delivery date for this deliverable: Project-month 1 Dissemination level: The general public (PU) Summary The work package WP7 Management ensures the successful completion of all deliverables, achievement of milestones and reporting of progress. A project office has been set up in order to implement a sound project management. Established at DMI, the coordinating institution, the project office is in charge of implementing the following tasks: Project and financial management, Grant management, Consortium management, consortium agreement management, Project internal communication, gendered innovation, dissemination and exploitation of results, exploitation and protection, Innovation Management, risk management, compliance with OA requirements for publications. Additionally, links have been built with the project managersof the projects AtlantOS, APPLICATE, INTAROS, CRESCENDO, PRIMAVERA, CLIMATEUROPE, CERES and EU-PolarNet, for exchanging best practices in project and financial management with the coordination and project /financial managers of the H2020 projects dealing with Blue Growth and climate services

Improved Predictions for the Arctic and connections to the Midlatitudes

Several Blue-Action partners attended the 2017 Arctic Circle event http://www.arcticcircle.org/ in Reykjavik, Iceland, October 13-15. These are the sessions we have been contributing to: http://www.blue-action.eu/index.php?id=4011 More information about the event and full programme: http://www.arcticcircle.org/ Keywords: Blue-Action, Blue Growth, Improved Predictions, Arctic, northern hemisphere, weather, climate, Climate Services, business strategy, Climate service innovation, climate-resilience, Arctic business, H2020, climate actio

Evidence for influx of Atlantic water masses to the Labrador Sea during the Last Glacial Maximum

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 23–19,000 year BP) designates a period of extensive glacial extent and very cold conditions on the Northern Hemisphere. The strength of ocean circulation during this period has been highly debated. Based on investigations of two marine sediment cores from the Davis Strait (1033 m water depth) and the northern Labrador Sea (2381 m), we demonstrate a significant influx of Atlantic-sourced water at both subsurface and intermediate depths during the LGM. Although surface-water conditions were cold and sea-ice loaded, the lower strata of the (proto) West Greenland Current carried a significant Atlantic (Irminger Sea-derived) Water signal, while at the deeper site the sea floor was swept by a water mass comparable with present Northeast Atlantic Deep Water. The persistent influx of these Atlantic-sourced waters entrained by boundary currents off SW Greenland demonstrates an active Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation during the LGM. Immediately after the LGM, deglaciation was characterized by a prominent deep-water ventilation event and potentially Labrador Sea Water formation, presumably related to brine formation and/or hyperpycnal meltwater flows. This was followed by a major re-arrangement of deep-water masses most likely linked to increased overflow at the Greenland-Scotland Ridge after ca 15 kyr BP

The Microbiome and Occurrence of Methanotrophy in Carnivorous Sponges

As shown by recent studies, filter-feeding sponges are known to host a wide variety of microorganisms. However, the microbial community of the non-filtering carnivorous sponges (Porifera, Cladorhizidae) has been the subject of less scrutiny. Here, we present the results from a comparative study of the methanotrophic carnivorous sponge Cladorhiza methanophila from a mud volcano-rich area at the Barbados Accretionary Prism, and five carnivorous species from the Jan Mayen Vent Field (JMVF) at the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge. Results from 16S rRNA microbiome data indicate the presence of a diverse assemblage of associated microorganisms in carnivorous sponges mainly from the Gamma- and Alphaproteobacteria, Flavobacteriaceae, and Thaumarchaeota. While the abundance of particular groups varied throughout the dataset, we found interesting similarities to previous microbiome results from non-carnivorous deep sea sponges, suggesting that the carnivorous sponges share characteristics of a previously hypothesized putative deep-sea sponge microbial community. Chemolithoautotrophic symbiosis was confirmed for C. methanophila through a microbial community with a high abundance of Methylococcales and very light isotopic δ13C and δ15N ratios (-60 to -66‰/3.5 to 5.2‰) compared to the other cladorhizid species (-22 to -24‰/8.5 to 10.5‰). We provide evidence for the presence of putative sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria in the arctic cladorhizids; however, δ13C and δ15N signatures did not provide evidence for significant chemoautotrophic symbiosis in this case, and the slightly higher abundance of cladorhizids at the JMVF site compared to the nearby deep sea likely stem from an increased abundance of prey rather than a more direct vent association. The phylogenetic position of C. methanophila in relation to other carnivorous sponges was established using a three-gene phylogenetic analysis, and it was found to be closely related to other non-methanotrophic Cladorhiza species with a similar morphology included in the dataset, suggesting a recent origin for methanotrophy in this species. C. methanophila remains the only known carnivorous sponge with a strong, chemolithoautotrophic symbiont association, and methanotrophic symbiosis does not seem to be a widespread property within the Cladorhizidae.publishedVersio

Implementation of methane cycling for deep time, global warming simulations with the DCESS Earth System Model (Version 1.2)

Geological records reveal a number of ancient, large and rapid negative excursions of the carbon-13 isotope. Such excursions can only be explained by massive injections of depleted carbon to the Earth system over a short duration. These injections may have forced strong global warming events, sometimes accompanied by mass extinctions such as the Triassic-Jurassic and end-Permian extinctions 201 and 252 million years ago, respectively. In many cases, evidence points to methane as the dominant form of injected carbon, whether as thermogenic methane formed by magma intrusions through overlying carbon-rich sediment or from warming-induced dissociation of methane hydrate, a solid compound of methane and water found in ocean sediments. As a consequence of the ubiquity and importance of methane in major Earth events, Earth system models for addressing such events should include a comprehensive treatment of methane cycling but such a treatment has often been lacking. Here we implement methane cycling in the Danish Center for Earth System Science (DCESS) model, a simplified but well-tested Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We use a generic methane input function that allows variation in input type, size, timescale and ocean-atmosphere partition. To be able to treat such massive inputs more correctly, we extend the model to deal with ocean suboxic/anoxic conditions and with radiative forcing and methane lifetimes appropriate for high atmospheric methane concentrations. With this new model version, we carried out an extensive set of simulations for methane inputs of various sizes, timescales and ocean-atmosphere partitions to probe model behavior. We find that larger methane inputs over shorter timescales with more methane dissolving in the ocean lead to ever-increasing ocean anoxia with consequences for ocean life and global carbon cycling. Greater methane input directly to the atmosphere leads to more warming and, for example, greater carbon dioxide release from land soils. Analysis of synthetic sediment cores from the simulations provides guidelines for the interpretation of real sediment cores spanning the warming events. With this improved DCESS model version and paleo-reconstructions, we are now better armed to gauge the amounts, types, timescales and locations of methane injections driving specific, observed deep-time, global warming events.FONDECYT (Chile) 1150913 Chilean ICM grant NC12006

On the reduced sensitivity of the Atlantic overturning to Greenland ice sheet melting in projections: a multi-model assessment

Large uncertainties exist concerning the impact of Greenland ice sheet melting on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in the future, partly due to different sensitivity of the AMOC to freshwater input in the North Atlantic among climate models. Here we analyse five projections from different coupled ocean–atmosphere models with an additional 0.1 Sv (1 Sv = 10 6 m3/s) of freshwater released around Greenland between 2050 and 2089. We find on average a further weakening of the AMOC at 26°N of 1.1 ± 0.6 Sv representing a 27 ± 14% supplementary weakening in 2080–2089, as compared to the weakening relative to 2006–2015 due to the effect of the external forcing only. This weakening is lower than what has been found with the same ensemble of models in an identical experimen - tal set-up but under recent historical climate conditions. This lower sensitivity in a warmer world is explained by two main factors. First, a tendency of decoupling is detected between the surface and the deep ocean caused by an increased thermal stratification in the North Atlantic under the effect of global warming. This induces a shoaling of ocean deep ventilation through convection hence ventilating only intermediate levels. The second important effect concerns the so-called Canary Current freshwater leakage; a process by which additionally released fresh water in the North Atlantic leaks along the Canary Current and escapes the convection zones towards the subtropical area. This leakage is increasing in a warming climate, which is a consequence of decreasing gyres asymmetry due to changes in Ekman rumping. We suggest that these modifications are related with the northward shift of the jet stream in a warmer world. For these two reasons the AMOC is less susceptible to freshwater perturbations (near the deep water formation sides) in the North Atlantic as compared to the recent historical climate conditions. Finally, we propose a bilinear model that accounts for the two former processes to give a conceptual explanation about the decreasing AMOC sensitivity due to freshwater input. Within the limit of this bilinear model, we find that 62 ± 8% of the reduction in sensitivity is related with the changes in gyre asymmetry and freshwater leakage and 38 ± 8% is due to the reduction in deep ocean ventilation associated with the increased stratification in the North Atlantic